


Sleight of Hand

by Umidunnostuff



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Oneshot, Spoilers for Crooked Kingdom, bittersweet feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:30:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9233261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umidunnostuff/pseuds/Umidunnostuff
Summary: Inej is leaving, but she  and Kaz spend one last afternoon pretending everything is normal. A short oneshot that takes place just before the end of Crooked Kimgdom.





	

In the interim, during her preparation to leave on a seaward journey, Inej spent most of her time either at Wylan's house. But not all. She stopped in to the crow club, to drop off scraps of information to Kaz or, just once, to feed the crows once more.

She stood there at the window, back to Kaz as he scribbled away at the work Per Haskell had neglected, taking advantage of the slow period after the panic about the plague to catch up on work. It was familiar, and it woke an unwelcome feeling of nostalgia and sadness in her. He hadn't said anything when he'd entered, but she'd heard the rhythm of his cane pause as he entered, and fancied she heard that caught breath, that speeding heart, that Nina had claimed to hear while high on parem. "Like he was seeing her for the first time all over again," she'd said. There wouldn't be much she would miss about the city, but, this office and the boy who resided there might be one of the things she pined for on a long journey.

He was watching her. He had done that a lot when he'd first taken her on, and though she never caught him staring, she could feel his eyes. It was like back then, when he'd watched her disappear, just like the cards and coins of the street magicians from whom he'd learned sleight of hand. After a time, his sharp gaze had faded, but now it was back full force. As if he could master her disappearances and reappearances as easily as he mastered coins and cards and picks. She thought, guiltily, that she was about to disappear like so many coins and cards under the quick fingers of a street magician. 

Kaz would be fine without her. He'd already found a new spider to run his errands, or so she'd heard. And yet... and yet she wasn't just that, the hopeful voice within her whispered. She wasn't just the Wraith to Kaz anymore. He'd asked her to stay, so long ago on that boat, and he'd also freed her. Even before then, she'd sat afraid in this office as he gave her her freedom in the form of a contract, and then in the form of knives, glimpses of bare hands and wry humor. 

The scribbling stopped, and she turned to face him. He sat at the desk, long sleeves pulled down, gloves immaculate even in the privacy of his office, and eyes impassive as he surveyed his figures. She had seen the fissure cracks in his armor, and then the holes and soft, bare spots where it had been broken and stripped away, but as soon as it was gone, he repaired it. Put it back colder and harder than before. Perhaps it was selfish of her, to ask him for his whole self, and not the facsimile he'd created out of iron and blood and leather, but Dirtyhands was not someone she could love. 

He set the pen down with a clatter and raised his eyes to her finally, black in the dim light. Scheming face, she thought as he looked at her unabashedly, took her in. She was expectant, of what she didn't know. 

Kaz tugged his gloves off, an unexpected concession, and when he spoke his voice rasped as per usual, but not harshly. 

"Aren't you too busy to be hanging around making friends with crows?" 

Always with the jabs, little taunts, though this one held no venom, and was more like an inside joke than anything else. Her eyes were drawn to his bare fingers, and she figured if he got to stare so did she. 

"They're rude, but you know? I think they might not be that bad," she responded with a quirk of her lips.

Kaz's fingers were elegant and long, pale and pristine. They called him Dirtyhands, but she didn't think she'd ever seen any cleaner, not on any soft pawed mercher or rich pigeon. Did he even have callouses, she wondered. He never took his gloves off for jobs, and though the bones were crooked, slightly gnarled from breaking them across someone's skull, most likely more than once, the skin appeared thin and smooth, protected by leather for years now. 

Since Kaz made no move to approach her, she walked towards the desk, meeting his eyes across it. He made no move towards her, the shucked gloves nothing more than a show of surrender. 

"That's dangerous thinking there. The crows here keep bad company. Murderers and thieves, gamblers and runaways. Didn't anyone ever warn you off those bad sorts?" He was smirking up at her now, just the slightest flash of teeth.

"Maybe I am one of those sorts," she answered, sitting across from him, laying her hands on the desk in a mirror position of his own. They were an offering, a chance he could take if he wanted, but his eyes stayed trained on her face and his fingers didn't even twitch.

"You've come so far from home, Wraith," he said, for the first time using her title. The title he'd given her. 

"Home is not a place. It's people," she said, repeating what she'd said before. 

"My statement still stands, does it not," his eyebrow quirked, daring her to argue. 

She thought of her parents and her family, and of practice on trapeze and tightrope. Of pan bread. That was home. But home was also Jesper teasing and flirting and Wylan's cleverness and beautiful, confident, powerful Nina, and the boy in front of her. Not Dirtyhands or the bastard of the Barrel, but Kaz Brekker, the one she knew in small pieces, put together over time and shared pain and success.

"You're only part right, Brekker," she said, rising and walking to the window. She deposited the rest of her bread and climbed out, not pausing to glance back or utter a farewell. Kaz hates goodbyes anyways. As she left, and even as she traversed the rooftops, she imagined she could feel him watching again, as if by staring long enough he could master all her tricks, like a street magician with a deck of cards.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on a whim after I finished Crooked Kingdom and my life felt empty. It's probably not super great but feel free to comment.


End file.
